Laser Engraving process

[Saurav Gupta]

Hi all,

This is the method I used to process images for black granite and I was wondering if it is the correct method or if anyone can suggest a better method / or is my method wrong.

Method:
I crop the image in corel using their cut out lab
I then paste it on photoshop, fade the edges. Then I convert it to grayscale 8 bit. I auto process it on Photograv 300dpi and run the machine.

Do I always have to edit the photos contrast etc as I never do that? Some photos come out amazing but some come out terrible. Could anyone suggest anything which I might not be doing? If I should be editing some settings, which should I edit and to what values?

Thank you!!

[Bill Cunningham]

Hi all,

This is the method I used to process images for black granite and I was wondering if it is the correct method or if anyone can suggest a better method / or is my method wrong.

Method:
I crop the image in corel using their cut out lab
I then paste it on photoshop, fade the edges. Then I convert it to grayscale 8 bit. I auto process it on Photograv 300dpi and run the machine.

Do I always have to edit the photos contrast etc as I never do that? Some photos come out amazing but some come out terrible. Could anyone suggest anything which I might not be doing? If I should be editing some settings, which should I edit and to what values?

Thank you!!

I always do a bit of tweaking on photopaint using the colour adjustment.. I desaturate it first, to remove the colour, then with the brightness/contrast/midtone/etc. adjustments I wteak it til it looks perfect (to my eye anyway) then click ok, and convert it to a 8 bit greyscale and process it in photograv(I use the old one) using the generic black granite setting.. then engrave

[Kees Soeters]

The difference between some pictures is that some have great contrast and others are quite "grey?" In Photoshop there is an option "Curves". In grey there is a Histogram and a line from left-down to right-up. If you see zero-values on the left and/or right you can make the line steeper bij moving the upper and lower points to the middle.
More contrast can be made by draging halfway-left a bit down and pulling halfway right a bit up... you will get a kind of S-curve.
If you play with it and compare several pictures you will soon notice what you need to do to get an average good picture..

Kees

[Saurav Gupta]

The difference between some pictures is that some have great contrast and others are quite "grey?" In Photoshop there is an option "Curves". In grey there is a Histogram and a line from left-down to right-up. If you see zero-values on the left and/or right you can make the line steeper bij moving the upper and lower points to the middle.
More contrast can be made by draging halfway-left a bit down and pulling halfway right a bit up... you will get a kind of S-curve.
If you play with it and compare several pictures you will soon notice what you need to do to get an average good picture..

Kees

Thank you, I will try that. I have noticed that when I etch some older people, it is more grey like you mentioned, so I will play around with the Curves and etch them both to compare the difference.

[Mike Null]

Saurav

It is always helpful if you can post photos of the work in question.